Lukas Forchhammer, one half of the music duo Lukas Graham with Mark Falgren, will be opening for Ed Sheeran in the US from August 15 in Minneapolis, completing the run on October 24 in Texas. But the timing coincides with his children returning to school, and the 37-year-old has no intention of missing that. Instead, he will be flying back and forth between the States and Denmark to see his children and, like any other dad, do the school run.
"It's going to be a fun autumn," he exclusively told the Mirror. He added: "I'm going to be flying back and forth a lot so I can see my kids and help them in the—the start of the school year, and then next weekend I'll be back in the States with Ed."
Balancing Tour and Family
While Lukas admits he's more than excited to hit the road with Sheeran, he says he's also excited to have the privilege of taking his daughter, six, to school for the first two days of the term before he can leave for America and release their forthcoming album, Good Times.
Lukas said: "Until then, it's like my daughter's school start is really top of my mind, and I still have a couple of festivals to do here in Europe before we travel to the States. It is a super exciting thing to be touring with Ed all autumn."
Speaking folk and hip hop, he said: "It's like we're influenced by a lot of the same things. He has Irish heritage, so do I. The folk music influence, the rap hip-hop influence. It's a weird, very good match, actually, him and I."
Creating 'Good Times'
Reflecting on Good Times, which is slated for release on August 14, he said it was "easy and natural" to create the record. While artists can take several years perfecting an album, for Lukas, it was just 13 months. "Some things are made in the right time," he said, adding: "I'm mid-to-late 30s, I have three kids."
"It was this idea that if I was going to make a folky-sounding album, then now was the time. Not now or never, but just why not now? Some of the songs I already had written from previous writing bouts, and then we just started assembling."
Having listened to the record in full, each song easily falls into the next, almost as if it's one continuous track. "There was a lot of thought that went into it," Lukas said, before adding: "We took out several songs that weren't conducive to that. The following up of each song."
"We took out a few pieces, I added a few of them and created these little musical palette cleansers, like Freetown Road is the first one, Carry Me Home and Nights I Won't Forget. They give you this little space to breathe before you roll back into more fully produced music."
"The way I always structured albums was with the vinyl in thought. So always think of it as Side A and Side B, and that's what becomes the running order of the digital album."
And the creation process for Lukas was simple – he had fans at the forefront of his mind and decided to create an album that people could listen to from start to finish, without hitting shuffle.
"It was important it wasn't too long," he said of the record, which is around 32 minutes. "25 minutes would have been too short," he laughed. For Lukas, though, his song Carry Me Home is one of his favourites on the record. "It's just a song about wanting to be carried all the way home, you've seen the big city, and you've been everywhere, now you just want to go home."
A Tribute to His Father
The record holds an extra special place in Lukas' heart, as it has a deep connection to his late father, Eugene, who worked as a music booker. He worked with his pals Mike and Ruthy from The Mammals, whom his dad had previously booked in Scandinavia.
He said: "We're in recording BVs with their two like big teenage kids now, and the five of us in a room recording background vocals, and Mike and Ruthy are talking to me about how proud my dad would be of this album, and how much he would have loved hearing the songs."
"It took me a little by surprise, all the feelings that were suddenly like, 14 years after he died, it was quite riveting. Going to Nashville and recording with some legends, hearing what people thought about the album and what my dad would have probably criticised enough for being too American and not Irish enough."
Following the death of his father, Lukas heard a quote from a friend, saying: "I wasn't devastated when my father died because I loved him. I was devastated when my father died because he loved me unconditionally." This struck a chord with the musician, who said: "You only grieve for the people who die that you love, right?"
One poignant track on his record, To Know A Girl, is completely stripped back – and the song is perhaps the most personal, dedicated to his daughters. "It was important to me to use that; it was like a statement piece. Something different is going to be released from Lukas Graham. So it was a banjo-driven song without an actual chorus."
"And like old Irish songs, it's more about a feeling than it is about a story. And it's just the feeling to be lucky to have these girls in my life. It was very much a decision for me to release that song; it didn't really have anything to do with anybody else."
Reflecting on Success
11 years ago, Lukas topped the charts with the six-times platinum single, 7 Years, which sold over 3.6 million copies in the UK alone. Over a decade later, he says he's still often confused when he sees the global statistics for the hit single. "I always just had a dream of travelling, singing and writing songs," he said, before adding: "It sometimes confuses me a little when I look at the numbers and the number of people listening to what I do because at the end of the day, I go home, do laundry, make porridge, and pack lunchboxes."
"I have a nice contrast to the life of a touring, songwriting artist. I guess I hoped I would still be in this position. I think that's also one of the joys of becoming older. When I was 22, I couldn't dream of this life for myself, even if I wanted to."
Despite his crazy schedule, the musician says he has a good team around him who help him navigate between touring and family life. "Right before I stick the key in, you have to leave the work backpack on the street and reflect, what kind of a person is walking through this door?" he said, adding: "Is it a big artist that just walked off stage in front of thousands of people, or is it just a dad walking in to greet his kids and be like, on their level? And it's a really important exercise to do, because otherwise I might, without thinking, bring all the big-world energy into my little kids' lives, and I'm not sure they're ready for that."
His children simply know Lukas as dad, and are often bewildered when they hear his music on the radio when out and about. 15 years after his first single, Ordinary Things, Lukas admits the biggest lesson he learned about himself during the process of Good Times was remembering how much he loves his career.
"It's been a huge gift to take all these new songs out on the road just because we wanted to," he said. He added: "I think, in the last year of writing these songs and reflecting on my life, I've also been reminded how much I enjoy spending time with my kids, my wife, and my family. I wish for this album to be super successful, but then I also dread not seeing my family as much as I want to."
Right now, Lukas has no current plans to tour the UK, although he says he would "love" to be back on British soil in the near future. He explained: "Right now, my main issue is trying to structure touring in various parts of the world, and then also see my kids enough for them to still call me Dad. It's one of the things that I'm just getting better at."
"I work very hard to do that, because my kids come first before everything else. Even though I have this crazy job, and showing them that you can do impossible things when you try and when you reach for the stars is really important, but also being there to put on a plaster and kiss away the boo-boo, that's also very important."
Good Times is released August 14, via Virgin Music Group. New single Second Chance is available now.
